New Reasons to Believe

I'm finding new reasons to believe in God every day. One of the newest: watching people of different faiths pulling together in difficult times.

"Killers do not deserve the honor of a religious label." Eboo Patel wrote this for the Washington Post here last week. But the problem is that everybody on the planet reported that this man is Muslim implying a connection between his faith and his terrible crime in Ft. Hood.

I agree with Patel: A Muslim didn't commit this crime. A disturbed man committed this crime. He could have been a Christian or a Jew or an atheist. But the fact that he happened to self-identify as a Muslim has nothing to do with anything except for the fact that it perpetuates misunderstanding.

He did not allegedly shoot people because he is Muslim. Killing innocent people is anathema to the most basic principles of Islam. He allegedly did this because he is deeply disturbed.

This is a good time to support the Muslim community as they are receiving some destructive publicity because of a very troubled person. But there are new reasons to believe that God can use even this to bring people together.

Art is Reasons to Believe by Chris Roberts-Antrieau whose fantastic work was displayed last weekend at the Washington, DC Craft Show. Buy her stuff.

What Do People Think When They Hear "Church"?

Yesterday, a friend referred to people who had been loving to her in difficult times this way:
"They were like church for me."

She was referring to the federal workers in her husband's office.

Out in the world, a reference to "church" often conjures up a variety of images:

• pews and stained glass windows

• older ladies and gentlemen singing old time hymns

• requests for money to paint the steeple

• judgmental people

• preachers who say one thing and do another

• meetings

Those of us who are in the church and love the church see different images:

• mission trips to help flood victims

• friends praying together and reaching out

• stirring music, moving messages, inner peace

• laughing people who love being together

• meetings (okay, yes, we have lots of meetings)

We also have those other features too, perhaps, but we who are part of the church have experienced the wonderful aspects of being the church too. Most of the world does not.

But imagine if "Church" became a term to describe all that is unconditionally loving and generous to those in need:

About a stranger who sat with someone on the side of the highway until the tow truck came:
She was like the church for me.

About the neighbor who drove his elderly friend to the doctor's office every Friday:
He was like the church for me.

About the social service agency that provided shelter and food for a house fire victim:
They were like the church for me.

Imagine if people pictured "the church" when wonderful things happened? This is what the church is like. This (colleague, nurse, PTA volunteer, barista, bus driver) was like the church for me.

Things would be different.

Are You Smarter Than a Pastor?

I just read an interesting sermon idea for worship this Sunday:

Play "Are You Smarter Than a Pastor?" by having the preacher/pastor sit on a stool in the chancel and have people ask him/her trivia questions about the scripture lesson. A variation on this is to pick three members of the audience - er, congregation - and see if they are "smarter than the pastor."

Yikes.

We seminary-trained clergy folk consider ourselves to be smart. Presbyterians, especially, tout our academic achievements:

We can exegete scripture in Greek and Hebrew.

We've jumped through ecclesiastical hoops involving interviews, oral exams, written exams, and counseling.

But there are many smart people in our congregations and - if they have been encouraged and sometimes even when they haven't - they also have theological chops. They've pondered the mysteries of relationships and prayer and grace and forgiveness. And out of their experience, they have something to say.

I realize that this changes our historical understanding of The Sermon.

But it's been a while since The Sermon was about teaching doctrine, at least in many churches.

It's been a while since the preacher said, "This is what we should believe about that" at least in our church.

And it's been a while since we've observed such a variety of faith experiences, traditions, and belief systems among those joining us for worship on Sunday mornings.

It's been a while since we shifted to preaching as spiritual direction, more dependent than ever upon the Holy Spirit to speak to people where they are.

What would happen if we allowed faithful lay leaders to preach The Sermon? In our evening (emergent church) worship gathering, this is what happens almost every Sunday. We call it the content or the message, though.

In the past year, people have led conversations/content on:

• what the Bible says about stewardship
  
  
• the history of Lent
  
  
• how to minister to someone who's lost a loved one


• how to interpret the many voices we hear and how to discern which is God's voice
  
  
• what an inner city congregation is doing to reach out to the neighbors


• the parable of the talents


• resting in God
  

The list is much longer than this, but my point is that the leader is rarely a seminary educated person. And yet, because this is a conversation and not a sermon/lecture, people are free to say, "I see it differently" or those with special training/insights can add their two cents.

Maybe we are unusual because we have some very smart people at our 6 pm worship service, and on a given night, several are actually seminarians or divinity school graduates. These are people interested enough in the Bible to ask me to teach them how to do Greek and Hebrew word studies online.

My (now, sadly, former) colleague M. once told me that the difference between our morning worship service - which is traditional - and our evening worship service - which is emergent - is that, in the morning it's as if the preacher prepares a feast for a crowd. Or at least she tries to. Some will leave still hungry and some will be filled. Some tasted their favorite foods. But sometimes they will get junk food and sometimes they will get red meat. But the preacher will exhausted by mid-afternoon because she whipped up the meal - essentially- by herself. Yes there was music and hospitality, but she was in charge of The Sermon and the prayers.

In the evening - following this analogy - the meal is potluck. Someone brings the main dish but others bring the complimentary side dishes. In other words, someone might be slated to offer content on, say, The Good Samaritan but others will contribute their own ideas and even corrections.

Welcome to the post-modern church.

Many of us will say that "untrained" laypeople are not equipped to preach, nor are they orthodox or doctrinally sound or talking the party line. Their message is relativistic and simplistic and we can't control it.

Some might even say "Well maybe we don't need seminary-trained pastors anymore." My opinion is that we will still need trained followers of Jesus to equip other followers of Jesus.

There are many who are much smarter than the pastor in certain areas: technology, international development, graphic design, surgery, architecture, geology. And that is what makes a congregation so rich. Everything speaks to God's glory. It's important to share how God is working in those realms too, and in fact, it enriches all of us to hear about it.

I wonder how much longer we will have professional preachers and pulpits. I say this as a person who loves to preach. It's my favorite thing.

So, what do you think?

Image is photo of the seminary library in Ischia Ponte, Italy.

Institutional Members versus Relational Members

Continuing yesterday's conversation . . .

we have new members joining this month although they've been members for a while now. What I mean is that some of them will choose institutional membership (making public professions of Christian faith, adding their names to church rolls) in addition to their current membership (having relationships with each other and God through our particular congregation.)

Like many churches, we have institutional members whom we barely know.

And we have relational members whom we know well but - for a variety of reasons - they don't care about voting in meetings, holding elective office, having their names on lists in registers.

And we have members who are both.

There are still some people whose names are on our church records as "members" but almost nobody knows them. They participate maybe once a year, stopping to check in with me as they leave the morning worship service to catch up briefly. Sometimes they never connect with anyone but the pastor. Sometimes they fall through the cracks and nobody notices they are not participating.

I don't care anymore how many institutional members we have. People still ask, "How big is your church" as if saying "1000 members!" would so impress them, even if they were members in name only.

I care very much that we have as many relational members as possible. That would be the point. We want people to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We want people to have relationships with each other.

If we get big enough, they can't all have personal relationships with the pastor (and sometimes they leave the church because of that.) I love it when I see other people connecting, knowing each other's issues, caring about each others LSATs, grandchildren, tonsilectomies, adoption plans, gluten intolerance, sick sister, new puppy, fertility treatments.

This is the church: We grapple with life's issues together in the context of faith. But we have to know each other's life issues in order to grapple, or else church is quite the solitary endeavor.

I can do solitary church alone on my sofa. But then I would miss experiencing the community that cares about TBC's college applications along with me, that pools resources with me to support J. doing mission work in Australia and B. whose house burned down last month, that asks me how things are going now that M. has moved to Pittsburgh, that visits homebound members and takes them communion with chunks of bread from the morning's sacrament. This is the church that supports each other personally so that we can be the church beyond the walls of the building.

I believe people want this. They don't care about having their names on a list somewhere unless it's a list that good friends can call if there's a problem or a great piece or news to share.

A woman joined for worship us last Sunday evening after the dinner, after the message, after the prayers, after communion. She got lost or something and by the time she arrived, we were posing for pictures in the "photo booth" left over from the previous night's Halloween Party. From the photo above, you'll never guess which one she is, because she looks like she belongs. And she does. Our newest member.

Photo of Sunday evening worship with assorted members posing as pirates for no apparent reason. Only 5 of these people can actually vote in an official meeting of the congregation. The others are happy trying to figure out how our faith and life connect. And posing for silly pictures.

Have To versus Want To

It's that time of year again: families are making holiday plans. Just sent $ to FBC to buy tickets for December flight home and to SBC for train ticket before Thanksgiving, hoping it's not too late.

So . . . after 110 (thankfully free) cell phone minutes talking with BSE today, I've figured out some things about family dynamics and the institutional church. Stay with me here.

Every family has their Institutions. Some are great:

• the family camping trip each summer,


• the annual over-the-river-and-through-the-woods trek to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving,


• Aunt Gladys' baked beans for Super Bowl Sunday.

Whatever.

But maybe the institutions aren't so great:

• Junior always gets poison ivy and Mom - who is allergic to bees - lives in constant fear of being stung to death, even though Dad insists that "This what families do. They camp."


• Grandma is mean.


• Aunt Gladys drinks way too much and her whole personality turns scary.

Each year, I observe families who feel pressure to "go home" for the holidays even though it is stressful at best and toxic at worst. But they do it every year because It's An Institution: families are supposed to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with each other. Norman Rockwell taught that this is how to live our lives. We sit together at a big table and spend the day together.

That's What a Family is Supposed to Do. Some would say that you are not a family unless you are spending the holidays together.

Call me crazy, but this is a crock. It's not about Institutions. It's about Relationships.

I could go for decades (and I have) without spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with my siblings but it doesn't matter. Our relationships make us a family. Family institutions do not.

How does this relate to the church?

Someone told me once that our church was not a real church anymore because we didn't have 9:30 Sunday School for children. When I told him (a man with no young children) that our parents didn't want 9:30 Sunday School and that they themselves had requested a program for their children during worship several years ago, he did not back down.

He said: 9:30 Sunday School is What a Church is Supposed to Do.

He believes you are not a church unless you have 9:30 Sunday School. And Bible Studies led by the pastor. And pews in the sanctuary. And people dressing up for worship which must be at 11:00.

This from a person who would never attend a Wednesday night Bible study while still insisting We Must Have One. Because that's what churches do. I disagree.

It's not about Institutions. It's about Relationships. Think for a moment of the things we love about our church. If those things were gone, would we still be the church?

One of the downfalls of The (Formerly) Mainline Church has been that we have perpetuated many of the institutions that historically worked, even if they don't work anymore. And it's killed us. We have clung to The Annual Pancake Supper even though only a handful of people attend each year. We have hesitated to rearrange the furniture even though the original fellowship hall layout isn't conducive to the way we spend time there anymore.

We have refused to let go of certain organizations or programs even when they stopped being effective (i.e. feeding people spiritually, making disciples, equipping saints.)

As I shared in a previous post, our congregation enjoyed a lovely chili dinner sponsored by our deacons last winter. It was really fun. The only "program" was hanging out together and getting to know each other.

The next Sunday, someone suggested to me that we make it an annual affair, which speaks to how "successful" it was. But the problem with institutionalizing the chili dinner - or any church program - is that the event could turn into a "have to" instead of a "want to." Instead of being fresh opportunity to get to know each other, it becomes a requirement or another program that someone will have to be convinced to head up.

Maybe there will be another chili dinner and maybe there won't. But my hope is that - if it's scheduled again - it will be because we want to get together and not because it's written in stone on the calendar.

Church Institutions, like Family Institutions, can be spectacular. They can create wonderful memories and bolster community. My children remember funny Christmas pageants and beautiful candlelight services. But their comfort and joy are rooted in their relationships with the others with whom they've experienced those events, not in the fact we have them every year.

Sometimes we do things every year that bring tremendous anxiety. Why?

So as we make our family plans, as we make our church plans for the holidays, I'm trying to be more intentional. It's about relationships and spiritual nourishment. It's not about doing something because we must. But it will make the people angry who don't have the relationships.

Top image is not Norman Rockwell. Bottom image is Christmas Eve at FPC.

Do you still read newspapers? On news print?

I remember a colleague sharing that her 30-something associate pastor had told her he doesn't subscribe to a newspaper, a disclosure met with disdain and a trace of intellectual superiority. How can he preach and teach when he doesn't know what's going on in the world?

"Maybe he reads his news on the internet," someone suggested.

"Well then he's missing out on some big stories," she responded.

It's true that when I read news on the internet, I miss those small articles on page C3 and A20 about the mysterious death of rare oryx at the zoo and the typhoon that struck the Philippines. And reading the newspaper on a Kindle is annoying.

But I'm pondering canceling my subscriptions to the Washington Post and the Sunday NY Times. It's just a lot of paper adding to the recycling bin. There seems to be less in there.

This is not like discontinuing my Blockbuster account.

I want the newspapers to survive. I love newspapers and the writers who fill them with thoughtful opinions, sane advice (love Carolyn Hax), and good reporting. I like the calendars and photos and lists. I like the Animal Watch stories on Thursdays.

But nevertheless, we are considering a trial separation from our long time delivery guy - not because he isn't dependable but because it feels like life is changing to the point that news on the internet just makes more sense.

What do you think? Do you subscribe to the newspaper?

Under Pressure

At the risk of having Freddy Mercury stuck in my head . . .

I'm feeling under pressure.

This is definitely not the pressure one feels when unemployed or facing terminal illness. This is not the pressure of a mother working two jobs to support her family or a teenager living in a dangerous home.

It's just stuff: family, work, the family's work.

Anytime there's a change, there is new pressure and we have some life changes going on, so new pressures. Not a disaster. But a good time to refocus.

So today, I'll pledge to eat better and exercise more and look for ways I can relieve someone else's pressure. This is the basic work of the church.

We can call it earthly/heavenly salvation or peacemaking, but it relieves pressure and helps us want to relieve someone else's pressure.

Let's relieve some pressure on each other (and ourselves) today.

Graffiti by Smolik.